Please read “About this project and the Author” for more information on my project. This excerpt is the third part and conclusion of the excerpt “Discovery of attraction”.

“On their last day at Ville Joie, all the interns show up at the beginning of the afternoon and stay with us for the rest of the day. It is special to have so many people around all at once but not special enough to bring me relief from the weight crushing my heart. I have already become sensitive to moments of departures and scenes of things ending, something that still afflicts me to this day. In mid-afternoon, Allan and I spend some time playing outside with Pete who appears much more pensive than usual. On our way back inside just before dinner, Pete turns to us and in a shaky voice says “You guys are very special, don’t you ever forget it”. We both thank him and tell him we like him very much also. His words hit us pretty hard, especially Allan who has grown so fond of Pete.

The mood is getting heavier by the minute and close to the end of our last dinner together, not much is being said. The interns have by now figured out that we have become emotionally attached to them and that somehow we know we will probably never see them again. My guess is that, rookies that they are, they have become attached to us as well and somewhere along their training, they forgot who they were dealing with; a bunch of kids craving for love but unaware what to do with it once it was offered to them.

After our nightly snack and after supervising us one last time as we prepare for bed, the interns come to see us one by one to say goodbye, just before lights out. All goes well until they visit the fourth or fifth kid who begins crying, which triggers a chain reaction of tears in the dormitory. From my room, I can hear the other kids cry and the interns doing their best to comfort them. I am not looking forward to my turn at all and I keep fighting the emotions inside of me. I have to be strong because the last thing I want is to end up crying in front of Andrée. Easier said than done; my room is the last one on the way out, so by the time the interns get to me, the dormitory is pretty much flooded with tears. When the first couple of interns make it to my room, I am able to hold it together by keeping it simple and saying just a plain goodbye. In the room next to mine however, I can hear Pete as he speaks to Allan in the midst of a powerful crying fit. I begin to sing a song in my head so I won’t hear what is happening around me. A short moment later, Pete opens the curtain of my room and walks in, saying a few words to me and extending his big hand as an invitation to mine. I keep the song going in my head, thinking that if I can’t hear what he is saying, I won’t lose it. On his lips, I can still read the last few words he says to me: “It was a pleasure meeting you Daryl”. My heart goes straight to my throat as I shake his hand. He turns around, walks away and at the same moment he exits my room, Andrée enters, and shuts the curtain close behind her.

She stands at the foot of my bed, herself looking shaken by the way the others kids have just reacted to saying goodbye. After a few seconds, she asks “Daryl, are you ok?” I know for sure that, if I try to say so much as one word, I will burst into tears. So just I simply nod yes and turned on my side to face away from her. Andrée must have taken it as a sign I didn’t want to talk to her and stays only a few more seconds to look at me. When I hear the curtain of my room being closed behind her after she leaves, it is more than I can handle and I start crying. Andrée who must have heard my sobs, rushes back in my room and sits on the edge of my bed to console me and tuck me in real tight, one last time. She speaks to me with her sweet, soft voice while resting her hand on my chest and assures me everything will be just fine. After a few, too short minutes, she leaves again, but this time for good. It takes quite a while, but I manage to cry myself to sleep with the music of Cat Stevens as the background.

This was the first time I ever cried for a woman. Andrée became a memory which faded over time, and surprisingly disappeared all together from my mind, until Cat Stevens brought her back to me. Thanks to him, her beauty remains intact and the sound of her voice, as faint as it has become because of the distance put between us by the passing years, is still sweet, soft and of great comfort to me.

It was both saddening and maddening to me that the memory of the interns had been buried so deep inside of me and for so long. This was such a dear and intense time for me, it should have been kept as close to my heart as possible and revisited as often as needed. My toughest moments were piled on top of these beautiful images which I am sure of it, were longing to be seen again because they climbed back to the surface with disarming ease once I made way for them. Well, once Cat Stevens and I made way for them. He is the reason I have so much respect for music and its power. Music is often part of the stage set of important acts in people’s lives and a song which may mean absolutely nothing to us may very well take someone else back to a defining time in their life. Be careful next time you say “I hate that song” to someone, what they may hear is “I hate that moment that means so much to you”…”

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